No Ice, Please
by pretzel monster
Summary: Temari never expected a lazy-ass Pineapple to rescue her from the pits of hell.—AU; ShikaTema
1. I Understand, Don't Worry

_To hell with my life, she thought. She slapped herself afterwards for looking like a brainless alien with him._

**N**o** I**ce,** P**lease

By Enf  
><em>Disclaimers, yo: I DO NOT OWN NARUTO!<em>

-**I** **U**nderstand, **D**on't **W**orry-

"Temari?"

She flinched as she heard her name and frantically compiled the pieces of unevenly-sized papers on their coffee table. Inserting the disheveled mass of papers in between random pages of her Algebra book, she scrambled off her seat when her Bic stick fell on to their red floor. She hit her head in the process, and Kankurou cleared his throat.

He called her again, firmer this time. "Temari."

He watched painfully as his sister finally found the Bic stick and gripped it tightly. _She's holding it back_. His heart ached at the sight.

Temari stood up and gently placed the pen in place, beside the book that had torn paper edges sticking out of its thickness. She sat down.

_What are you holding back, Temari?_

"Yeah?"

Kankurou stared at her in mixed awe and sympathy.

_What do you hate…?_

He felt a lump in his throat for the first time in six long years. The feeling of wanting to burst in tears. The throbbing pressure coiling around his neck. That raucous scream of his heart.

He tried to fight it back. He could, and he would, especially if Temari was there.

She shouldn't see someone crying.

"…Nah," Kankurou summoned an incredibly forced toothy grin on his face and looked at Temari with apparent glee. "Just…it's cold, huh?"

Temari never noticed before. She was sweating, even as she wore only a black tank top and dirty white knee shorts. Her hair was messier in four pig tails, and her eyes—her blue ocean eyes seemed as if they were about to pop out from exhaustion.

"…It is…"

Kankurou stared at the dark rings below her eyes. He observed how Temari's chest moved unevenly and in ragged breaths and how her shoulders appeared too stiff.

"You should buy yourself a jacket," He managed.

She never paid attention to how Kankurou discerned that Temari had grown too skinny over the years and looked to be an alcoholic woman at twenty-three.

Yet she was still only a thirteen-year-old, over-working high school student.

"Um, just…" Kankurou stammered and placed his bag on the wrecked couch. It had never been fixed, that couch. "Don't…don't overdo it, okay? Just…Shit, I'm going to bed. Night."

He opened the door to his room—which was also the baggage room—and left his sister to decipher exactly what Kankurou meant.

She didn't need to decipher. She knew exactly what it was—Kankurou had known what she was doing from the beginning.

Temari just didn't want to pay attention and accept it.

"I'm so sick and tired," She said, slamming her head on the desk. Tears stung her eyes. Her heart throbbed painfully. It was always like that, day by day, and every night she would come to this scene. It was repetitive, _too_ repetitive not to be considered immense torture.

More pain came as she bit her wrist.

She had no right to complain. Her brothers never once complained about the kind of shitty life they lived. She never once heard Kankurou or Gaara whine about how unfortunate they were, how their lives sucked, and why the hell they were still alive. Temari heard none of that, and, as their one and only oldest sister, she was proud of their endurance.

But not of herself.

She was supposed to be _working_ to keep them alive. She had survived through everything, right? What would happen if she got fired, whatever the cause might be? She would just look for another job, and maybe hope for a pay rise. That wouldn't be so hard.

So why was she complaining? Because she lost her job for the eleventh time? Because every night she went home, she would lie to her brothers that she had a new job and she would bring better food for them at home? Because they were fucking stuck at the end of the world and no one gave a damn about it?

Nothing was new. Nothing was ever new.

"Sick…and tired…" Temari managed in a muffled voice as she kept biting her wrist, and soon, blood oozed out from a small wound. Tasting the unexplainable sweetness of her own crimson blood, she let go, burying her face in her folded arms.

"I'm so tired…"

She knew, and sometimes she noticed, but she would hardly accept **defeat**.

So why now?

And of all things that she couldn't notice, why was it Kankurou sobbing madly in his own room, just against his door?

**~NIP~**

**Enf: **This is only the first part of this meant-to-be-a-oneshot fanfic. I tried this WB cure exercise and this came out.  
>Please review. ^^ Next chapter will be updated tomorrow.<p>

_thanks for reading :)_**  
><strong>


	2. I'm Sick, Help Me

-_I_'m _S_ick, _H_elp _M_e-

She didn't care if her socks were torn. She was going to wear them, and it wasn't as if she was someone popular in school to be so worried of her public image. Only her classmates and a few teachers were familiar with her, anyway.

Kankurou had left early. He left it in a message, along with his leftover bread from breakfast.

Temari put her leather bag on the table and set herself to eat. Coffee and some bread were enough for the three of them. She opened her English book and a pencil, turning page by page as she began to sip her coffee.

"Synonyms…" She mumbled slowly and took another sip. "Pff, this is freakin' easy."

Her right hand scribbled the answers on the book while her left tore a portion of bread and dipped it into the coffee. Biting the whole brown portion, she chewed thoroughly and finished answering her homework.

"Done!" She beamed and fixed her things. While she finished her coffee, she coughed violently, spitting the still warm beverage all over. She put a hand on her chest and her other hand on her mouth. That feeling again—the feeling of that suffocating hell she would suddenly dive into without reason, the feeling of being enclosed and not being able to see the light or breathe the air anymore, the feeling of lost hope, all stuffed down in a fearful ailment.

Temari was now kneeling, both hands on the floor. Her coughing fit stopped, but that didn't mean peace for her.

In fact, it was the most painful part _after_ coughing.

She breathed heavily and tried to ignore the throbbing, pinching pain in her chest. She tried to ignore the image of her weakening lungs that ached for air. She tried to ignore the droplets of red liquid mixed with the dark coffee.

"…Shit…"

She turned around the kitchen and grabbed a dry towel near the sink. She wiped everything—everything that might be the evidence of anything strangely bad about her, about her health—on the floor, under the table, and as soon as she was done, she threw the towel on the sink.

She stood up hurriedly, snatching her bag, and slung it over her shoulder. She shouldn't mind the pain, she thought. She couldn't bear to see Gaara worry about her—he was far too young to exhaust himself over something so trivial.

Or not. Maybe it really _was_ something to worry about.

"No, no, no," She convinced herself. She tore a sticky note from a pad on the fridge. "Calm down, Temari." She held on to her Bic pen tightly, but her hand was quivering. She herself was shaking in—what was it?—fear, or what she could perceive as tension. It wasn't possible, of course, that there would be red liquid in coffee, and a part of herself had come to realize soon enough before this that _she_ was the one who coughed the red liquid—_blood_—and that she was obviously sick.

She shook her head and tried focusing on writing the note for Gaara. "Dear Gaara…" She coped in between heavy pants. "…Please eat breakfast. Don't skip meals. Remember to read what you need to." She tried to add more, but her shoulders began to ache, and her knees couldn't quite hold her in that standing position any longer. She gulped, and maneuvered her pen on the space left. "Kankurou and I will be checking the homework we left for you. Take care. I love you. Be careful; remember what I told you about anyone coming over."

Finishing the note, she slammed it on the table, stuffed her pen somewhere in her bag and sprinted for the door.

From behind the door of their room, Gaara slowly opened it, checking if Temari was still in sight. The door was left hanging open.

Gaara walked out, his white bare feet stepping softly on the polished red surface. He stopped near the table and picked up the almost crumpled yellow sticky note. Opening it with his pale, small fingers, he read the words, clear in his mind. It didn't take him too much to notice the drop of blood on the note. He had already smelled some on his way to the kitchen, right below his feet.

He saw Temari clearly. He saw her trying to fight the monster that was eating her inside.

And he loved her more because she still tried to fight back, but he wished that she wouldn't try to hide it from them anymore.

Kankurou and Gaara both knew about it, anyway.


	3. My Book's Yours, For The Meantime

-My Book's Yours…For The Meantime-

Temari didn't care if the prefects dared to report her after they caught her running in the hallway, as long as she would still be able to catch up with her first period class, in the least, to not look like an idiot in the morning.

Their homeroom teacher was nowhere to be found. What should she feel? Relieved, because she might reach the classroom before the teacher ever came? Or, frenzied, because the teacher might be in the classroom at that moment?

"Oi! Sabaku!"

She ran faster at the call of her name. After numerous times that she had that attack—suddenly coughing up blood, and after that, intense chest and back pain—she'd proven to herself that the pain would go away after she'd exhaust herself or run at impossibly high speeds—to the extent that she could still stand, of course. She'd gotten use to the attacks for a few months now, and treating the pain would somehow make the illness go away. If there ever was, Temari thought.

She spotted her room, the door open, so she stopped exactly at the front of it and hoped for the best.

The teacher wasn't there. She was lucky. Half-lucky, for the time being anyway, because as soon as she set foot inside the classroom, almost every head turned to look at her. More like _stared_ at her—most indifferent, but some appalled (for what reason?) and a few talked about her in hushed voices.

She didn't care, though. She couldn't care, pay attention to them at all. She wasn't in the school for _them_ anyway.

And, from the theory that morning, she heard what she expected the most.

"Look at her socks…"

"Isn't she, like, _embarrassed_ with them? I mean, look at those _holes_!"

"She probably doesn't wash them, either."

"She's that poor?"

"Oh, come on, like you haven't noticed her since the beginning of the year…"

They went on. They thought she couldn't hear them, but she caught every single word they hissed about her.

She walked on a regular pace now, not caring if she was still panting or tired from the running, and placed her bag on her desk. She took a seat—the seat most probably unnoticeable: the last row, near the corner of the classroom.

Her seatmate—also the only classmate she ever talked to since she entered that school—was in his usual position, with his feet raised high, perched on his desk, his long legs relaxed. His crossed arms pillowed his black-pineapple head, and, possibly the only option, he had put a pocket dictionary to cover his face.

That was Shikamaru Nara. They weren't particularly close, but they weren't complete strangers to each other, unlike Temari's relationship with their other classmates—if there _was_ a relationship. He had talked to her on the first day of school, asking her about her old, worn-out socks. He would also ask a few questions or talk about a few things, especially during lunch break, when they had nothing to do, and she would stay in the classroom with—surprisingly—_him_. He always loved to be alone in the day, since he could go anywhere he wanted, much preferably in an open area where he could watch the clouds. Temari remembered watching a few fluffy-type fair-weather clouds from their classroom windows with him. That had been serenity. But that was all there was in their friendship, as far as Temari could see, and as such they weren't 'best buddies'.

But she had times when she had wondered about him. he had wondered about him, about the school, about rich families, and why the world was so unfair. She had also sometimes wondered why he'd chosen to sit next to her, at the time when he was almost late on the first day of school, when he could sit on the row before theirs, where all his friends were.

Maybe he didn't want to get too much attention, like her, or maybe he didn't notice the seat beside Akimichi.

Yeah. Maybe he was like her, maybe not. But that didn't matter, didn't it?

She peeled her eyes away from him and focused on her hands, on something that might bring her back to reality.

The teacher entered, and it turned out that there wasn't homeroom that day. It was Tuesday. Temari forgot; there really was no homeroom on Tuesdays, and also on Thursdays.

"Did you guys finish the assignment? I told you from the very beginning: if you can't go with my system, get the hell out when it's my class."

History? What was it?

"We're on Product of Polynomials, aren't we?"

Algebra.

Temari hummed quietly as she opened her bag to look for her Algebra book. She had four books with her and two pocket books. _Algebra, Algebra…_ "Where, where…"

There was History, there was Science, there was her dictionary, there was English…

…No Algebra?

_Wait,_ She stopped her rising panic. "It's here, it's here." She rummaged through her things, and the panic threatened to come out of her. She grabbed what she thought was her Algebra book but almost shrieked when she got out Kankurou's guitar chords book.

Her Algebra book wasn't there.

_No…This isn't happening_. Cold sweat formed in her temples, and her heartbeat went incredibly faster, almost too fast that it would pop out from her heaving chest; she could feel it, but it bothered her more than her voice wanted to whimper. _Where did I leave it…?_

Last night.

She remembered and tried so hard to keep her mouth shut from cursing.

On her coffee table.

"…Shit!"

All heads turned, and the teacher immediately looked furious.

Thankfully it wasn't her.

"I just don't get it, Sensei," A flaxen guy, who, if Temari could remember correctly, was named Naruto, whined, scratching his head. "_None_ of this makes sense."

"_Your_ improper behavior doesn't make sense," Anko answered back, gritting her teeth.

_What am I going to do?_

That was the only thing colliding in Temari's fucked up brain.

She could answer the questions quite easily, but _where were the questions_? How was she supposed to explain it, if she was called?

"Sabaku? Is Sabaku here?"

The call of her surname made her shiver totally. She gulped, raising her hand. _This is it_. "I'm…here…"

"First question, if you can." Anko ordered firmly, looking at Temari, hand poised with the chalk to write on the board.

"…Um…"

"Sabaku?"

"I, uh…"

Something jabbed her wrist.

Temari turned to her side and saw that it was the edge of a book—an Algebra book—being held by a skinny hand. She looked at Shikamaru gingerly, but he jabbed her wrist even more, and the sharp edge of the plastic was pricking her skin, so she took the book slowly, making sure that Anko and everybody else wasn't to notice.

She stood up, the book in hand—Shikamaru Nara's Algebra Book—and read the given problem aloud.

"The quantity x plus two multiplied by quantity x plus three," She began almost confidently but she knew that she was practically shaking.

_I forgot my Algebra Book_.

"Go on," Anko prodded, writing the equation on the board.

_I'm using Shikamaru Nara's Algebra book_.

"Use the FOIL method; multiply first terms, multiply outer terms, multiply inner terms, and multiply the last terms. Simplify."

_I can answer Anko-sensei because Shikamaru helped me_.

Anko remarked, "Good. That's the _simplest_ problem in this topic possible, Naruto, so don't go mad just yet."

_This isn't cheating. I answered on my own, right_?

Temari sat down and calmed herself. She turned to her seatmate, who was giving her a long look. Muttering a low 'thanks', she handed him his book, but he made a gesture, slowly pushing it away.

"Answer first."

_Why did he do it_?

"…Okay…"

She got her pen out and answered the questions as fast as she could on her notebook.

_…Does it matter_?

And, in almost three minutes, she finished the twelve questions and quickly handed his book over to him.

"Thanks," She said, louder this time, but not loud enough for others to hear.

He smiled—the first thing in Temari's life that she'd seen and considered _heavenly_—and mumbled softly, "You're welcome."

_…Whatever._

**~NIP~**

yes, a double update in one day.  
>please review. :"<strong><br>**


	4. World On The Walls

-_W_orld _O_n _T_he _W_alls-

"…Gaara…?"

The night flew promptly as Temari paid less attention to everything that happened to her. As soon as she got home, she smacked Kankurou for carelessly putting his chord book in her bag, did her assignments _completely_, and made sure that all of the things that she would need when she would go to school again was placed safely in her bag.

She had cleaned up already after checking Gaara's assignment. The older two siblings managed to buy a few books appropriate for Gaara's school needs and had him homeschooled, with Temari as her Math and English teacher, and Kankurou with History. They didn't bother with extra subjects. As long as their littlest brother knew what he should, besides the rules of survival in the city, they thought that if they ever got the opportunity, Gaara would bring them back up.

Temari didn't mind the sudden cold of the night. She chose to put on a lime green sleeveless top and a pair of white sweats with black strips on the sides. They had a blanket, and she would be sleeping with Gaara, so she didn't exactly need to wear more than what she had, as they didn't have much. She had taken precautions, of course, regarding her illness that might be contagious. She always wore a mask or cover her mouth with a towel, or if the little boy permitted it, as his small but strong arms wouldn't, she would turn her back to Gaara.

That Tuesday night, Gaara had woken up again. He would usually wake up at one or two in the morning, but this time, he woke up at around twelve midnight.

"Dream," He said, his poised hand delicately lifting the red-soaked brush. "I had a dream again."

He would dream about many things, and not all of them he told to Temari or Kankurou. The older brother had a conversation regarding Gaara's insomnia one night, and he said Gaara would talk to him about his dreams of hope and light, or open gates to opportunities. Gaara would tell Temari about his dreams of their past, of a family, of three kids, of anything that were related to the siblings. They weren't all happy, unlike the dreams Gaara would tell Kankurou.

The redhead would paint his dream on the walls, but there was a divine line between his types of dreams. He would paint the kind of happy dreams, the ones that he told Kankurou, on the top side of the walls, and the other dreams below.

That Tuesday night, Gaara was painting near the floor.

"It's about us?" Temari said, rolling over so that her stomach was on the bed. The boy nodded.

Temari watched him stroke fine, professional lines on the hard canvas. "Is it a bad dream?"

"It's bad, if you're me," He said and dipped the brush into the plastic cup of already dark-colored water. "But you're not me, so, it's good."

Temari sighed inwardly. What was, exactly, her little brother? He sometimes spat out bluntly child-like words but he could be such a sage sometimes.

"What's the dream about?"

The redhead's scrutinizing eyes glanced at her for a second. "Can't tell."

"Aww," Temari reached to touch the boy's fluffy red locks, pouting. "Why not?"

"It might not happen."

"Is it really good that you want it to happen?"

The child stayed silent for a while, and so did Temari. He turned, looking at Temari with a completely expressionless face, making her cringe inside. _What did I do wrong?_ They both stood frozen, gazing into each other's eyes, but the atmosphere was neither tense or maddening.

Gaara walked over to his sister. Temari rolled on her back again, her elbows supporting her upper torso. Leaning down, he gave her a hug and one of the best cheek-kisses she could imagine.

"Hey," She muttered, hugging her brother tightly. His head snuggled on the crook of her neck and mumbled something Temari couldn't quite comprehend.

"Gaara?"

"It's because…" Gaara managed, still not letting go of his embrace. "Because Temari's happy in that dream."

Temari still couldn't believe that her kid brother still managed to be so sweet and caring after what happened to them six years ago.

Their mother's death. Their bastard of a father leaving them to _almost_ die.

And how life had exceptions of who it should treat well…

**~NIP~**

glad there's people who like it. :)  
>please review!<strong><br>**


End file.
